To me it's mind-boggling that you could get arrested and fined for violating covid-related restrictions but people who did much much much more potentially dangerous stuff are not only getting away with it but also kept getting financed by the government. Even if covid turns out to not originate from a lab, just the insane potential risks that came from the blatant violations of the GoF moratorium should have been enough to land people in trouble. Especially since us commoners were punished based on the possibility that we could transmit the virus, whether we were infected or completely virus free didn't matter.
The lab was doing GoF research with bat and pangolin Coronaviruses exploring if the spike protein can be modified to enter through the human ACE2 receptor. There are a number of papers from Ralph Baric and Shi Zhengli on the topic with research done at the Wuhan lab.
Because otherwise there are no valid reasons to create this kind of pathogens in labs; the chance the bugs created there will be similar to the naturally occurring ones are basically none and even less so that the vaccines or treatment will be or remain efficient treatment.
Ok that is totally made up.
There are plenty of reasons that researchers make dangerous pathogens that have nothing to do with ethnic cleansing.
Some of these methods even get published despite the risks that the knowledge presents https://www.nature.com/articles/nature.2012.10875
Are you saying literally no one at all wants this? Just that there are also other reasons to do the research? Something else?
My concern is that there aren’t just altruistic research directors. There are funders. There are politicians. There are militaries. There are covert agents. And I get really concerned how easy it is for actors with less savory, noble intentions to coopt naive researchers into participating in a larger agenda.
It’s super convenient for everyone to be able to have the plucky, innocent, earnest research director come out with shining optimism about the potential. And it’s a convenient reason not to totally slam the brakes on research that, for better or worse, may lead (may have led) to global pandemic.
There were alleged leaks from a whistle-blower from the CCP regarding developing bio-weapons that targeted specific gene sequences attributed to certain ethnicities.
https://guardian.ng/features/health/bioweapons-designed-to-k...
"A new report from Cambridge University’s Centre for the Study of Existential Risk says that world governments have failed when it comes to preparing against threats like futuristic bioweapons powered by Artificial Intelligence (AI) and genetic manipulation. Such weapons would have to power to target specific DNA, and kill certain races of people leaving other swaths of the population unharmed."
Additional information from a biochemist: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kjfvHOcfEUQ
> There are plenty of reasons that researchers make dangerous pathogens that have nothing to do with ethnic cleansing.
Such as? The article you posted merely states that it is possible and that they "wish" it will lead to more vaccine research, without saying how.
This is literally the purpose of gain of function virology research. Modify bugs in ways that could be seen in nature and explore vaccines and treatments.
There are no reasons to believe the mutants created in laboratories will arise in nature nor that the vaccines or treatments will be effective compared to what nature does. Added to the fact that GOF research never produced any kind of meaningful treatment or response so far and given how they are dangerous and leaks happen all the time; they should be outright banned.
The research should not be done because it has not proven to provide beneficial treatments.
You raise a few objectionable assertions that I think is good to contemplate: - GoF was never banned - The ban was NIH funding GoF - The ban was lifted in 2017 anyways - Is this risky? The ban on funding it doesn't mean it's risky, as per se. - The potential pie in the eye risk are infinite, but what are the realistic risks? That really depends on the technical details of how the research is done, and where it's done. - Compare and contrast to activities that are very dangerous and have nearly infinite catastrophic risks but we do every day: driving, flying, operating nuclear power plants, refining oil, and much much more.
All of this research came out of the desire not to be caught flat footed by the next version of SARS or MERS. Overall global research did in fact prep us for SARS-CoV-2. Vaccines "made in months" that have stood the test of efficacy and safety? Months if you ignore the years of research behind it.
Is this particular thing excessively dangerous or not? I'm not 100% sure. Most of the "this is unacceptable" seems to be coming from people who seem to have a visceral hatred of Dr Fauci and who as head of the NIH was indirectly responsible for this funding. But I don't find that a reasonable line of reasoning. One thing I know, is every scientist I know is not paid a boat load, and care deeply about what they are doing and why.
Perhaps GoF is too 'dangerous', but maybe we should also hear about how it can be made safe, how does it compare in hazardousness to other common things that are deemed 'safe' and what the benefits are.
What? The risks for each of those, even the nuclear power plant operation, are extremely limited and localized. GoF research has potential near-extinction levels of risk. Nuclear weapons are the ony thing on remotely the same tier IMO. It's not to say that GoF is not a good idea, as clearly there is potential benefit. But to compare it to the risks of driving a car is apples to radioactive oranges.
Nuclear accidents cannot be [1] limited and localized, and also [2] at the same tier as GoF (...since GoF outcomes are certainly not [1]).
GoF is often not lab engineering and the outcomes are not predictable and the range of possible danger is almost infinite. Even from perfectly well intentioned actors.
From my point of view, you simply cannot assess the risk when the main party involved in taking and being responsible for said risk has proven itself to be so shady. We all know that there areinherent dangers to this type of research, but we can't account for human deception and tribal wagon circling on top of that.
The proponents of GoF could've come clean, been transparent and welcomed the scrutiny considering the insane magnitude of the situation. But they have not! Even if it turns out that this is purely zoonotic, the trust is rightfully broken imo. Maybe research should continue, even on GoF, but consequences should now be clear. The article details such a long pattern of deliberate obfuscation, gaslighting and outright manipulation that it's becomes impossible to give them the benefit of the doubt.
Also, considering that we went through the biggest pandemic of the past century during which most people have seen their lives literally dictated by arbitrary (and very low) risk thresholds that authorities have decided to follow... it would be a bit rich to now just say that we have to live with the risks of scientists fucking up and that we have to let the pros handle it. Yes screw ups happen, but asking billions of people to just live with the consequences won't work.
Again, 2 years ago I'd have said that we need to take the risk because it can have tremendous benefits. But as much as appealing to "commoners" might sound lazy, there's still something deeply wrong when we see a much stronger and visceral reactions/consequences to maskless "karens" than we do to the individuals involved with orgs like the EcoHealth alliance. Yes it's maybe a populist take, but at some point the elitism becomes so blatant that even populism makes sense
And the probability that what is created in a lab will be close enough to what is naturally occurring in nature to be useful are none to zero.
The first step is understanding. Until you understand how it happens, statements about whether or not you can prevent it do not make much sense to me.
For example: imagine you have not yet discovered that the unwashed hands of doctors are transmitting disease in a hospital. You might make a statement very similar to yours about how "even if we can figure out how people get sick, it's not like we can stop it".
Basically they're creating bigger and bigger fires and claiming that doing so somehow helps firefighters. Next we'll have nuclear weapons researchers claiming that higher yields are good to know about so we can work out how to protect against stronger explosions.
As an alternative, we need to stop development of new viruses, both naturally and in labs, including Russian and North Korean labs.
This is a slogan with no logical value.
> Until you understand how it happens, statements about whether or not you can prevent it do not make much sense to me.
Except we do understand. It seems to me that you are lacking is basic scientific knowledge. Virus mutates naturally and become more virulent due to evolution.
> For example: imagine you have not yet discovered that the unwashed hands of doctors are transmitting disease in a hospital. You might make a statement very similar to yours about how "even if we can figure out how people get sick, it's not like we can stop it".
We can control our hands, we can't control viruses in nature.
Didn't feel like it.
https://www.usatoday.com/in-depth/news/investigations/2021/0...
Parent is solely focused on probability, when what really matters is outcome.
Lets say that for every 10 years: 1) p of lab leak is 0.002% vs 2) p of nuclear accident is 0.03%
Although (2) is much more probable, from a risk management perspective, (1) is unacceptable because risks compound over time and critically, the domain of outcomes are vastly less localized and certain than (2).
What do they learn from these studies? The drawbacks to GOF is clear - but what are the potential gains that makes the risks worthwhile?
There's two objectives of this type of research. One is that after you have the new virus you can try different drugs on it, so that if gets out you can rapidly control it. Usually the drugs you try are ones that the company you work for sell or have a patent for. I think creating a pathogen and then testing how you can cure it with stuff that you can sell for a big profit creates a conflict of interest if it's also your responsibility to be sure it's not released, but apparently I'm pretty alone in this conspiranoic belief.
The other objective is creating a bioweapon, or getting ready for one. The US allegedly withdrew from researching bioweapons in an offensive manner but offensive and defensive research are very similar in that field because you speculate what viruses your alleged adversaries have and then recreate them to try the vaccines against them.
I wouldn't be surprised if it goes the same way, push the little guy into trying it and then push everything else in the supply chain so that their meat can only be used for low margin cheap shit.
And hopefully enough of the people in those conversations then write their representatives.
We don’t ban pen tests, just because people who have 0 understanding of it are sacred of it.
Scientists are only human and bio research labs don't have the same culture of continuous improvement and lack of blame that have let the airline industry, say, get to its current level of safety.
EDIT: Oops, forgot to add the citation
[1] https://fortune.com/2021/12/10/taiwan-investigates-covid-lab...
https://armscontrolcenter.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/Esc...
And there are highly qualified experts in the field who view GoF research as the most likely source of COVID-19, so on what basis are you so confident that it doesn't pose a major risk?
So shouldn’t be base our regulation on that reality?